Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Robin
LotR 17-18 times for me (Silmarillion twice), Monte Cristo twice (though I'm in the mood for re-read atm), most of Austen (hated Emma), probably half of Shakespeare's plays (which ofc were never meant to read). I'd rather read Hawking than Hugo, Dumas than Dickens. I have always resisted being told what to read, even in school, and am grateful to the teachers who indulged me by providing alternatives I found interesting and enjoyable. I empathize with those who find the "canonical classics" unappealing, even while enjoying some of them myself - an earlier mention of Ivanhoe has me now wanting to check it out, and I'm going to add C18/19 English poets to my TBR alongside the Urdu masters I'm haphazardly wading through now. Reading should be a joy, not a chore, and if it is a joy, the learning derived will be greater too, I think.
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I think they way they teach in English class makes a lot of people turned off to reading. hey pick some really awful books and Shakespeare should never be read in school. Most of the books read are irrelevant to the lives of the students and they aren't allt hat enjoyable anyway.
If I wasn't already into reading for pleasure, school could easily have turned me off from reading. Chaucer and Shakespeare really not good to make kids read.